Bound For College expands efforts to support students

By Jennifer Shapiro-Sacks

|Special correspondent|

Nov 29, 2018 | 3:25 PM

Students in Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Boynton Beach participate in Bound For College, an organization that focuses on helping economically disadvantaged students enter and complete college. (Bound For College/Courtesy)

If it wasn’t for Bound for College, 18-year-old Florida State University freshman Abigail Agustin, of Delray Beach, said she wouldn’t be attending a university.

The Atlantic Community High School graduate credits the nonprofit organization that focuses on helping economically disadvantaged students enter and complete college with her current success.

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And now the organization, formerly known as Delray Students First, can help even more students like Agustin because it has expanded from working with Village Academy and Atlantic High School in Delray Beach to also include Boca Raton and Boynton Beach high schools.

“There’s a limitless need for what we do. Our focus is to hire teachers at the public schools to have them tutor underprivileged students in the ACT and SAT. The idea is to give the kids rigorous training… the students’ college entrance exams, the scores go up and they get into better schools,” said Bound For College founder and board president Mark Sauer.

Aside from giving students free SAT and ACT test prep, Bound For College also offers life skills programs, career planning, mental health counseling, health and wellness education, college tours and educational field trips.

“When the kids who haven’t had any tutoring take the exams, the first time they typically do poorly and they feel it defines their future and that is wrong. It tells us what we need to work on and improve. The world is full of possibilities for them,” said Bound For College CEO Kirsten Stevens.

Since the organization started in 2012, Sauer said 100 percent of the 67 students it has served have graduated high school and have attended a college or university minus the few who went into the military.

For Augustin, Bound For College helped keep her on track with her grades, she said.

“They held me accountable and just gave me support, and they still support us now,” she said.

Sauer started Bound For College after moving to Delray Beach, wanting to work with minority students, he said. He was a retired CEO and president of three professional sports teams and then was a teacher at Village Academy.

“We all know that public education in Florida is underfunded and teachers are underpaid. There’s no money for such tutoring programs, so that is where we step in,” he said.

Funding for Bound For College comes from community support, including contributions from individuals, foundations and organizations, and was a 2016 winner of a $100,000 grant from Impact 100 Palm Beach County.

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“We are always looking for financial support. We are very small. We are the ultimate grassroots startup nonprofit,” Sauer said. “Anybody who gets around our kids falls in love with our kids.”

Augustin recommends any student thinking about getting involved with Bound For College to “definitely” do it.

“It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They support you in ways no other program I’ve been in supports you,” she said. “The coordinators and people who run it are great. We are able to be ourselves around them and talk to them about anything, even stuff going on in our personal lives. They are awesome people.”